Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion
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Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Mass. As such, our focus starts there and spreads to include Massachusetts, the nation and the world. Since successful blogs create communities of readers and writers, we hope the \x34& Co.\x34 will also come to include you.

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By Rob Meltzer

Dec. 11, 2013
12:11 p.m.

GM is back in private hands thanks to a ten billion dollar gift from American taxpayers and we’re still licking our wounds on the Fisker fiasco. The real tragedy is what is not going to happen next. There had been some discussion that after the Government Motors thing resolved itself there would be some form of presidential blue ribbon commission to assess the policy and its outcomes and future application. You may recall that my objection to the bailout was that it was interfering in the process of creative destruction–I was certain, and remain certain–that bailing out a bad company to save jobs was going to have the effect and would have the effect of preventing new companies from emerging which would be better, bigger and more competitive. In fact, my sense of all this is that there have been three results of the bailout, all bad. First, it cost the taxpayers ten billion dollars, which is not a good thing. Second, it drove competition overseas, which is not a good thing. Third, it undermined competition here in this country, as the market was slanted and biased to help out the bailed out car companies, denying consumer choice to Americans who were footing the bill. (If you watch programs like Top Gear, it becomes shockingly obvious that we have become an irrelevant car market, with limited choices of deficient product.) It now appears that the Regime doesn’t want any more questions asked about this, and I guess Congress doesn’t either, so there won’t be a commission or a Congressional review to ask whether our 10 billion was well-spent. Apparently, everyone wants it swept under the rug and forgotten. The real loser, then, is the American taxpayer. We have a right to know how our money is being spent, and whether it is being well spent. We also have the right to an honest assessment of a program that might serve as precedent for future bailouts. That bailout was a big deal. Don’t we, the ones who paid for it, have the right to honest opinion based on real data about whether it worked or not? Apparently, the politicians who voted for this in first place don’t want those questions answered.